Yet here’s something to consider as the season winds down to its final six games: Normally, Thornton would have hit that mark in mid-February.

But this season is not a normal one for the Sharks captain. His scoring is down to its lowest level since he came to San Jose in November 2005, while other aspects of his play have improved. And considering the Sharks are on a 23-4-4 run over the past two months, coach Todd McLellan is fine with the situation.

“I believe he’s paying closer attention to some of the smaller details away from the puck and defensively,” McLellan said of Thornton. “We recognize that, we make sure he knows we’re aware of it. And I believe our renaissance since January is in large part due to that type of commitment from him and a few other players.”

Before this season, Thornton had been averaging 1.24 points per game as a Shark. This season, with 19 goals and 45 assists for 64 points in 74 games, that figure is down to 0.86. But he leads the NHL in take-aways with 106 — already 35 more than his career best.

Thornton said any changes in his style of play in his 989-game NHL career have been evolutionary.

“I think every year your game kind of changes a little bit,” he said. “The way coaches use you is different from year to year. Not just me, but I think everybody’s game kind of evolves.”

Thornton and Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla both are chasing the 1,000 mark as the season winds down, each five points away. The last player to get his 1,000th? Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom on Oct. 15, 2009. Next in line? Phoenix center Ray Whitney, a former Shark, with 923.

All season, Thornton has downplayed any concern about the fact he may be headed for his lowest point total since tallying 73 for the Boston Bruins in 2003-04, his last full season there. The only number that mattered, he said, was the one in the win column.

“I’ve never been a guy who looks at how many points I get,” he repeated this week as the Sharks prepared to meet the Dallas Stars at HP Pavilion on Thursday night. “You play with good players, and all of a sudden you start getting some. I’m just part of that scenario.”

But his teammates are less restrained when talking about Thornton approaching the 1,000 mark.

“That’s huge for him,” forward Dany Heatley said. “Not that many guys in the history of the game have gotten that, so it’s pretty elite company. He’s been one of the best, if not the best, passers in the game for a number of years.”

More than two-thirds of Thornton’s points have come on 691 assists, and Heatley has been on the receiving end of many of those passes over the past two seasons.

“He always finds a way to make that play, to get the pass through,” Heatley said. “As the guy receiving the pass, you can never give up on the play because you know he’s going to find you — through the guy’s legs or over the guy’s stick, it’s always going to get through to you.”

Thornton, of course, isn’t the only Shark whose numbers are down this season. Heatley, Boyle, Patrick Marleau and others are in that same situation — yet the Sharks once again find themselves high in the Western Conference standings.

McLellan credits Thornton with having the right attitude when it comes to personal numbers.

“I really don’t think it’s about goals and assists for Jumbo at all,” the coach said. “He does have goals set — but they’re not about goals and assists. They’re about what this team is doing and what it hopes to do.”